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The marriage of democracy and constitutionalism gave birth to the most morally legitimate regime in political history. It is a marriage in trouble. One side demands power for the people, the other side demands restrictions. One has a strong desire to govern, while the other calls for moderation. One transcends collective desires, while the other institutionalizes control.
At least constitutional democracies worthy of the name still enjoy the gold standard of legitimacy. election Free play, competition between rivals so that the loser wins tomorrow and vice versa; the decentralization of political and economic power, the protection of rights, ensuring that the anger of the majority does not suppress the freedom of the minority, ensuring that the strongest does not crush the weakest: tension is everywhere you look.
The Brazilian Constitution attempts to join this democratic constitutional tradition. A very funny story: a constitution without democracy, without universal suffrage, without fraud-free elections, without an independent judiciary, without the protection of liberties, written in the living rooms of the white elite. A constitution without constitutionalism.
The 1988 model tried to convey something different. Congress The post-dictatorship electorate is more politically diverse, with more participation from multiple social groups (and other corporatists) than ever before. army, They accepted the transition to democracy as long as they remained untouched outside it, and the Constituent Assembly produced a text that was innovative in its promises and creative in its institutional design. A balanced agreement that was ideologically eclectic rather than revolutionary.
For the first time, it explicitly commits to reducing poverty and inequality, protecting property, the environment and future generations, the social functioning of indigenous peoples, and expanding public policies, universal rights and public health systems. and education, of free competition.
This is a gradual reduction GDPB (Brazilian Domestic Barbaric Production) And our authoritarian rubble. 35 years later, GDPB has increased despite advances in social programs. The ruins of authoritarianism have become new inventory. The historic debt ends in a promissory note.
But rhetorical summaries alone are not enough. The magnitude of the recoil needs to be calculated. Empirically and normatively. There is no better parameter than to return to the text of this short-lived constitutionalist claim, when we can look back and imagine a future return based on ideals of utopia, hope, and progress, rather than dystopia, pessimism, and inevitable expectations.
The process of regression has entered a new phase. They have found it easy to empty or destroy the Constitution without changing its text and without formally announcing its end. The plan to liquidate the Constitution’s assets is reflected on the one hand in the dark legislative agenda and on the other hand in the informal arrangements between the major powers that refuse to be institutionalized.
In our daily outrage, we lose sight of the scale of this project: fueling climate breakdown, fueling fires and deforestation, privatizing beaches, granting amnesty to coup plotters, militarizing schools, militarizing police, legalizing militia, Arming militias, arresting raped girls and reducing the sentences of those who raped them, Aboriginal, Pampering soldiers, depriving them of rights, transforming the constitutional family into a colonial and patriarchal one. Transforming jurisdiction into the negotiation of unobtainable rights, transforming legislation into the dependent allocation of secret budgets, thus stifling the governmental capacity of the executive branch.
To describe this moment as a clash between the left and the right ignores the deeper confrontation between the Constitution and the forces of pre-constitutionalism and extremism. At least we still have constitutional arguments. It cannot continue to be monopolized by jurists. So we can at least describe what is happening and tell the story. This is how the preamble to the Constitutionalist Manifesto begins.
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